Sustainability, Plurality & Justice for Science & Technology in India

Hans Rosling: Data visionary and educator dies aged 68

Hans Rosling, a Swedish professor of global health and well-known public educator, has died aged 68, his Gapminder foundation has announced. Mr Rosling was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a year ago and died in Uppsala, Sweden.

He was known for lively presentations that used data and animation to explain global development in a compelling way. His Gapminder co-founders said that they would continue to fight for “his dream of a fact-based worldview”.

Mr Rosling was a professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute but decided to “drop out” in 2007 to dedicate his time to Gapminder, which allows users to create their own data visualisations.

Hans Rosling became widely known after a talk he gave at a Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference in 2006 called “The best statistics you’ve never seen” was watched millions of times online. In it, he used animated bubble charts to show how developing countries were catching up in development indicators with the West, presenting in the style of a sports commentator.